Castle Aching

[brianusa]

10 hours ago, Regularity said:

 

This doesn't mean I will automatically like something: that's just down to personal tastes!

How true!  This hobby is too diversified for all to like what the other likes, there has to be some individuality.  This of course can change over the years, but not everyone is going to share our enthusiasm for our choices.

     Brian.

[robmcg]

14 minutes ago, brianusa said:

How true!  This hobby is too diversified for all to like what the other likes, there has to be some individuality.  This of course can change over the years, but not everyone is going to share our enthusiasm for our choices.

     Brian.

 

Ah but many here on RMweb thrive on 'friendly' criticism of the work of others.   I'm not sure what the aim is...  

 

I do like Edwardian's musings on the art of layout-building.   And Annie's virtual 'musings' too.    Maybe there a genetic thing in the idea of making miniature or virtual representations of something 'real'?  

 

I really spent too much time at uni i the early 70s doing philosophy.....  observe the camera..

 

 

cheers

Edited February 13, 2020 by robmcg

[Andy Hayter]

Thanks Rob,

 as these were models of prototypes that are entirely unfamiliar, it was difficult to picture the models.  As always your skills shine and you are quite right that adjustment of the image has gone on as long as the darkroom has existed.

[robmcg]

Thank you, Andy.  I get into all kinds of trouble here on RMweb and perhaps I am annoying to some, certainly our gentleman Edwardian doesn't need my trouble in his excellent and varied thread. I could do photos which are strictly 'warts and all' depictions of models, but Tony Wright is much better at that than I am., and I am far too lazy to bother with fill-in flashes and such.

 

I appreciate the latitude Edwardian has afforded me and genuinely enjoy beautiful models, landscaping, and re-creating a world gone by.

 

I must admit however, that when I look at the vast range of photos of RTR models from shops and reviews, there is little which represents 'real'. My modified and edited pictures are for me a way to experience pleasures from models in a manner which is absorbing and largely virtual.  

I rather like Annie's world too.  

 

Best to all, high summer here!

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

*in the mid/late 70s, our club layout was next-along from one of his works of art at a two-day exhibition, I think it was the layout that figured much in ‘Model Railways’ and was inspired by Wadebridge (maybe?).

I remember seeing one of Ian's layouts, the East Suffolk IIRC, in the mid-80s at a Heathfield show.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Modellers who concentrated entirely on those standards risk producing soulless layouts. 

Quite so. More than one early P4 or S7 layout seemed totally sterile to me.

[Donw]

A couple of things. Fiirstly I had the good fortune to meet Clarey Edwards and see some of his models running. For those who don't know him he built live steam models for 0 gauge. He built them to a slightly different scale to 7mm so the track gauge was accurate. This was largely so the gubbins between the frames needed for a steam engine could be fitted in properly. If a loco had two cylinders Clarey built it so. His West Country had the chain drive and he built a Gresley Pacific with the proper congugated gear for three cylinders. I was discussing with him the difficulties of scaling mechanical parts down and he mentioned that he had had to replace the conjugated gear. It had flexed a bit on the full size loco but scaled down was just too flexible.

Secondly when I bought a scale rule I realised I didn't need to scale things I could build them full size but using a measure 1/43rd the size of the original. This changes your mind set and helps avoid things out of scale. In 4mm instead of thinking about 20,40,60 thou sheet it become 1.5,3,and 4.5 inches. Apologies to those metricated individuals but for British pre-grouping imperial measurements are surely a must. I do not know how those modelling continental railways get on  or whether one can get a scale rule that measures in centimetres/metres? 

 

Don

[uax6]

Sliding back to Nellie, and her slight height issues, if you changed the wheels out to a set of Romfords of a slightly smaller size, you will find that she will drop down a bit more, giving you the right height. Use the 'fat' axles these will be a direct swap, and you can get ones with a knurled centre so that the gear wheel can be transferred straight across too.

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

in the mid-80s at a Heathfield show

 

Yes, my memory is of a Heathfield show too, but definitely earlier.

 

Did Mr R live in East Sussex at the time?

 

K

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Donw said:

metricated individuals

 

My children are two such.  

 

I pity them. They will never know the sublime joy of working duodecimally, or the eccentricity of 14 pounds to a stone, or contemplate the antique beauties of chains and furlongs.  

 

Having been robbed by the State of the chance to appreciate non-decimal currency, I cleave to what remains of our glorious imperial system of weights and measures. 

 

Until recently I could at least write cheques in guineas, but then the humourless civil service wowsers stopped that too.  These are the sorts of rationalist modernisers whose obsession with neatness at the cost of soul make them direct descendants of those who, when the county boundaries were so egregiously re-drawn in the 1970s, wanted to replace our shire designations with numbered departments.

 

I'd bring it all back, with all the peculiarities of local law and custom. and the Liberty of the Savoy to boot!

 

Damn all Modernisers and misguided Rationalists!

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Donw said:

In 4mm instead of thinking about 20,40,60 thou sheet it become 1.5,3,and 4.5 inches.

In S, a thou is near as dammit 1/16".

But 1/64" is a scale inch.

I have a scale ruler, but rarely use it, preferring to keep my mind active with simple mental arithmetic, working in eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds and sixty-fourths. Not duodecimal, admittedly, but also reciprocals of counting in binary (where 1/64 is 0.000001), so oddly related to the modern digital world. 

Not all modern rationalism is worthless...

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, Donw said:

I do not know how those modelling continental railways get on  or whether one can get a scale rule that measures in centimetres/metres?

I believe they generally simply divide the real measurement by the scale ratio, or possibly just produce a drawing to scale and measure straight off from that!

 

I prefer the North American approach: when you buy polystyrene or wood strips intended for railway modellers, they are listed as H0 4"x2" or whatever it happens to be.

[uax6]

Being one of the children of metrification, I've always believed feet and inches are miles better. But interestingly its only since I've come on the railway that I've actually been able to put the imperial system to use. All the existing railway still being measured in miles, chains and yards (Although you see diagrams of work with xxmiles xx metres in, which is truly bizarre!).

Sadly this will start vanishing as the all singing, all dancing ERTMS takes over, as this has to have everything in silly metric units. Speeds will become meaningless as well, as these will have to be changed as well.

Knowing that I'm likely to be one of the last proper signalmen in Anglia, when I go, the imperial system will go with me.

It will be a real end of an era...

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

The concept of the scale rule has indeed reached foreign shores. I know that such thoughts tend to upset some John Bulls, but it is, of course, possible that it foreigners had scale rules before we did. Subject for a PhD in the history of technology there, eh? "The diffusion of finely-measured scale representation across Europe, 1127-1843". Map-makers used scale rules and adjustable proportional-dividers, and pantographs, a very long time ago indeed ....... I'm thinking Ancient Greece, but don't really know.

 

Anyway ....... I have a plastic thing given away to NMRA members c30 years ago, which covers common US scales up to 0, and I think has 1:24 as well, which they call F. They clearly gave-up at that point, because "G Scale" in the US is a complete anarchy of mismatched scales and gauges that makes British 00 look fine-scale.

 

It is possible to obtain various European ones too.

 

I've accidentally collected about ten or fifteen scale rules over the years, wooden, plastic, metal, from both hobby and work, so could start a small (and incredibly dull) museum of scale rules.

[RodneyS]

I also remember Tregarrick from a Heathfield show, possibly around 1980.

I was told at the time that Iain Rice knew someone in the Heathfield club which was why he accepted an invitation.

I was impressed by the scenery and the fact that it was unusual.  I don't really remember much about the running,  good or bad.

 

Later on I saw the East Suffolk Light Railway and that ran well.

 

From his writings I gather that Iain was more interested in building models than operating.

Rodney

 

 

 

[Regularity]

15 minutes ago, uax6 said:

silly metric units

They aren't "silly", just planet-centric rather than people-centric. You find them silly because you are used to something else: despite being a "child of metrification" (first mooted for this country in the 1870s) you were educated and raised by people taught in the imperial system, or possibly the CGS system of measurements. Can you visualise a "bushel of wheat"? I can't, but I can visualise a cubic metre of it.

 

Also, we don't use the metric system in this country, rather the S.I. units and measures, which are very precisely defined (and yes, based on the metric system) to ensure conformity and consistency within scientific and engineering circles. 

Unless you work with NASA...

 

And legally, as long as you can show that the pricing has been derived from say, a kilogram, you can still sell a "half-pound of butter", the price needs to relate to 0.229Kg of butter...

An inch is defined internationally as 0.0254m, a mile, so a mile is defined as 1,609.344m: it has no other meaning.

 

That said, I simply use whatever is convenient!

[Annie]

I was taught the Imperial system and pounds shillings and pence in Primary School and then one day it was all changed to the metric system and dollars and cents so our teacher clones immediately started teaching that without a word of apology for all our previous efforts in learning the Imperial system. 

When I was still able to make things I always worked in Imperial measure and it was always amusing to see the vacant expressions on the faces of the young IPad generation staff at big box hardware stores when I gave them Imperial measurements to deal with. (Mind you I could invoke the same expressions on their faces by using technical words like 'bolt,, 'nut' or 'bracket' as well so possibly that was their default expression for anything a customer asked for.)

 

A moments silence please for the demise of the traditional ironmonger's establishment. 

We actually have a traditional hardware store here in town and the owner is both knowledgeable and intelligent as well as being helpful and able to give much practical advice, - all of which are rare qualities at the big box franchise stores.   Then this is a farming district and I'm sure that makes a big difference since folk here actually do practical hands on jobs of work and need practical tools and materials.

[Donw]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

They aren't "silly", just planet-centric rather than people-centric. You find them silly because you are used to something else: despite being a "child of metrification" (first mooted for this country in the 1870s) you were educated and raised by people taught in the imperial system, or possibly the CGS system of measurements. Can you visualise a "bushel of wheat"? I can't, but I can visualise a cubic metre of it.

 

Also, we don't use the metric system in this country, rather the S.I. units and measures, which are very precisely defined (and yes, based on the metric system) to ensure conformity and consistency within scientific and engineering circles. 

Unless you work with NASA...

 

And legally, as long as you can show that the pricing has been derived from say, a kilogram, you can still sell a "half-pound of butter", the price needs to relate to 0.229Kg of butter...

An inch is defined internationally as 0.0254m, a mile, so a mile is defined as 1,609.344m: it has no other meaning.

 

That said, I simply use whatever is convenient!

 

In pre-grouping days a Mile was 8 furlongs and a furlong was 10 chains. A chain was what a surveyor used to measure distances. It happens to be 22 yards long but I never checked the one I used. Redefining it as so many metres is just to suit the metricated. I presume they would have used 50metre chains in france, these days it is probably all done by GPS.  Surely the metric system is people based on us having five digits on each hand making counting to ten simple. If we had had an extra digit on each hand we would have been counting in dozens. If we had ignored the thumbs we could have been counting in Octal. As far as I can see counting using 10 as a base has no  real advantage.

 

Don

[Andy Hayter]

You are right Don.    Because the counting system was base 10, the metric system is centred around the base 10 counting system.

 

It did not have to be like this however.  The ancient Babylonians used a base 60 counting system.  This may seem irrelevant nowadays but we still use it:

 

Degrees in a circle - 6 x 60 degrees

Telling the time - 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Andy Hayter
typo

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

My children are two such.  

 

I pity them. They will never know the sublime joy of working duodecimally, or the eccentricity of 14 pounds to a stone, or contemplate the antique beauties of chains and furlongs.  

 

Having been robbed by the State of the chance to appreciate non-decimal currency, I cleave to what remains of our glorious imperial system of weights and measures. 

 

Until recently I could at least write cheques in guineas, but then the humourless civil service wowsers stopped that too.  These are the sorts of rationalist modernisers whose obsession with neatness at the cost of soul make them direct descendants of those who, when the county boundaries were so egregiously re-drawn in the 1970s, wanted to replace our shire designations with numbered departments.

 

I'd bring it all back, with all the peculiarities of local law and custom. and the Liberty of the Savoy to boot!

 

Damn all Modernisers and misguided Rationalists!

 

Dear me - I had not realised that our @Edwardian is in fact an emigre from the French revolution! (Though I should have suspected...)

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Donw said:

In pre-grouping days a Mile was 8 furlongs and a furlong was 10 chains. A chain was what a surveyor used to measure distances. It happens to be 22 yards long but I never checked the one I used. Redefining it as so many metres is just to suit the metricated.

A chain is 100' long in the USA.

A bushel is 8 dry gallons in the UK and 64 pints in the USA, but a USA pint is not equivalent to a UK pint, so they translate differently. A US pint also has 20 fluid ounces, and a UK one has 16. 

A Swedish inch was bigger than a British inch, and the "foot" varied all over Germany.

 

That's the whole problem with how you have defined a mile in "pre-grouping days": there were national differences and cultural biases underpinning the system, with chaos potentially ensuing - hence the creation of a unified system based upon (originally) the distance from the north pole to the equator, following a circular path based on the surface of the earth. It was 1/10,000,000 of this. It has been revised since, most recently in 1983 with reference to the speed of light in vacuum and the distance travelled in a second.

The inch was defined to be 25.4mm as a way around this, but a mile was whatever a national government defined it to be until more recent times. It started with the Romans, but their mile was different to ours, being 1,000 yards (mille passus, or 1,000 paces) or 5,000 Roman feet. And a nautical mile is longer still...

 

The definition of a "statute mile" as 8 furlongs is a late Tudor creation, and it was the surveyor's rod, not the chain, which was the key determinant of a furlong. A rod is, of course, 1/4 of a chain, and is 5.5 yards. Originally it was 5 yards, but the yards (and feet, and inches) were longer until 1593 when Queen Bess redefined them. The chain had been 20 yards, being a multiple of 5 yards, but when what was previously 15' long became 16'6" long under the new definition of a foot, the rod and furlong (and mile) maintained the same absolute distance, but were redefined in terms of their number of subsidiary units. (In case anyone is wondering, the "rod", also know as a "pole" and a "perch" is generally considered the be the longest length of pike that a footsoldier can use without difficulty. Since the aim of a pike is to put as much distance between the enemy stuck on the pointy bit and the pike-wielder, that is the usual length of a pike!) That this system was still in use in this country 300 years later is testament to the inertial power of any written standard.

 

The base 10 nature of metrification is, yes, an extension of five digits on each hand, which was the basis for the Roman counting system (V is the shape between forefinger and thumb on an extended hand, X is one V on top of another which has been inverted) although as the Roman counting system didn't include the concept of zero as a place marker, that doesn't help much. Base 12 would have been so much easier, but our counting system is indo-arabic in origin, and they were counting on fingers.

 

It was the lack of any agreed consistency amongst nations over weights and measures that made something like metrification inevitable. Base ten was also inevitable given the number of digits on each (normally replete) hand. The mile was internationally agreed to be 1,609.433m in 1959. This wasn't done to "suit the metricated", just to actually define the blessed thing consistently.

 

As I said, I use whatever is convenient, but as I consider myself to be reasonably scientifically literate, and therefore happy with the SI units. Because of my interest in railways, I have had to learn a lot about "imperial" units, and view that as one of the many benefits of the hobby, without the need to prejudice myself against either system.

Learning about other systems, and cultures, etc, only improves insight into the human condition: variety is the spice of life!

[petethemole]

Uk pints are 20 fl. oz., US pints are 16. Wimps.

[Nearholmer]

Nothing to do with units of measure, or anything else here come to that, but if I’ve got any feeling for the collective consciousness of CA Parish Council, I think that members will appreciate how Messrs Argos have accidentally created a brilliant piece of modern art here, commenting as it does on the ennui and minor tawdriness of modern existence.

 

The slightly damaged table-lamp speaks volumes.

 

Leaving aside all of which, operating consistently on base 10, and having readily understandable means of relating units of mass and volume etc is a bl**dy sight simpler

[wagonman]

In the old days, before any of us were born, they had to be even more precise about their measurements. Take the bushel: there were many different bushels in use as it was a volumetric measure. Here in the great port of Cley (!) in the C18 the local Customs House had to stipulate that grain, of which a good deal was exported, was to be measured by the "Winchester Bushel, stricken" – ie the grain had to be encouraged to settle in the measure. Likewise incoming coal was measured in chalders but nowhere do the Port Books say whether these are Newcastle chalders (52.5cwt) or London chalders (half that). As the coal came from the NE the assumption is that the Newcastle measure was used – and that seems to fit with average loads and known dimensions of ships.

 

Another problem is that in those pre-Whitworth days most local blacksmith cut their own threads and there was no guarantee the result would be compatible with a thread cut by a blacksmith in the next village.

 

The trains I model were built to imperial dimensions, but my models are measured in millimetres. Not a problem in S scale of course – until they start trying to model Pendolinos or whatever... Yes, I know, they'll just divide everything by 64. So much better than dividing by 76.2, or indeed by 43.5/45/48 for 0 gauge.

[rocor]

10 hours ago, Donw said:

A couple of things. Fiirstly I had the good fortune to meet Clarey Edwards and see some of his models running. For those who don't know him he built live steam models for 0 gauge. He built them to a slightly different scale to 7mm so the track gauge was accurate. This was largely so the gubbins between the frames needed for a steam engine could be fitted in properly. If a loco had two cylinders Clarey built it so. His West Country had the chain drive and he built a Gresley Pacific with the proper congugated gear for three cylinders. I was discussing with him the difficulties of scaling mechanical parts down and he mentioned that he had had to replace the conjugated gear. It had flexed a bit on the full size loco but scaled down was just too flexible.

Secondly when I bought a scale rule I realised I didn't need to scale things I could build them full size but using a measure 1/43rd the size of the original. This changes your mind set and helps avoid things out of scale. In 4mm instead of thinking about 20,40,60 thou sheet it become 1.5,3,and 4.5 inches. Apologies to those metricated individuals but for British pre-grouping imperial measurements are surely a must. I do not know how those modelling continental railways get on  or whether one can get a scale rule that measures in centimetres/metres? 

 

Don

 

Was your scale rule 1:43 scale?, or was it 7mm/ft scale?. The difference that it makes over 12" actual inches is approximately a scale 6 1/2". On my way out I must remember to collect my finescale pedants overcoat.